


Acta Non Verba

by toocleverfox



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Balekin being evil as usual, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-15 05:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toocleverfox/pseuds/toocleverfox
Summary: "I am no murderer," says Cardan, surprising me.- The Cruel Prince, pg. 119"Very well," the first guard says. "Go. But inform Cardan that his brother demands he bring both of you back this time."I don't like the sound of that.- The Cruel Prince, pg. 185If Cardan is no murderer, where did those human servants go?A short Cardan study about how he is not as cruel as others presume.





	Acta Non Verba

**Author's Note:**

> Acta Non Verba - "Actions, not words"
> 
> Takes place before The Cruel Prince and all the way until after The Wicked King, so beware of spoilers!

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”

― Lewis Carroll, _ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland _

Cardan could easily recall the first time he freed one of Balekin’s servants. 

The servant had been a boy, around Cardan’s age, and he’d had the strangest eyes that Cardan had almost taken him for fae when he’d first laid eyes on him. With dark hair and broad shoulders and a few moles dotting his neck, the boy had been undeniably handsome.

That was what had drawn Cardan’s attention. Most of the servants Cardan had become accustomed to had chapped lips and greasy hair and odd gaits, but this boy had clearly been a new addition to the palace, lips still wet and hair still soft and steps sure footed.

Whenever the boy had passed him in the castle halls, Cardan’s eyes had lingered on him. That was how he had noticed when the boy slowly started to change. His skin had started to gleam with sweat and his hands would shake as he went about his chores.

Cardan had never spared a glance at any of the servants before but having to watch one of the humans crumble in front of his eyes had made him take notice.

When he’d come to understand that the humans in Balekin’s castle were worked to the bone before being disposed of, he knew he had to do something for that boy.

He didn’t have a word to describe it at the time, but later on he discovered it was _ empathy _ he had felt for the servant. He had been _ afraid _for the boy’s life, as if it were his own.

It was a feeling that had made him burn from the inside, but one he had eventually smothered until it was a dull ember that occasionally flared up against his heart. 

That day, he’d waited until Balekin had departed from the palace before bringing the boy out to the stables behind the palace. The boy’s lips had been cracked and bleeding when Cardan had shoved salt into his mouth. In an instant, the human had sucked in a deep breath and scrambled away from Cardan, pressing his back up against the stable wall.

The boy had looked around, his wide eyes, his whole body shaking. “W-where am I?” he’d asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“You are in Elfhame,” Cardan had said casually. “I will take you back to wherever you came from.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” he’d responded, finally looking at Cardan.

The weight of the situation had suddenly grown on Cardan and he desperately wanted the boy gone from his sight. He knew he’d made a mistake, but one he couldn’t fully come to regret, not in that moment and not any moment afterward.

Afraid, Cardan had growled, causing the boy to flinch. “We do not have time for your questions. Do you or do you not wish to return home?” 

The boy had hesitated for a moment before nodding.

Cardan had grabbed a steed from the stable and forced the boy up onto the horse, ignoring the tremors in the boy’s body.

He had rode as fast as he could to the mortal world, stopping at the first road he saw. 

“Get off,” Cardan had ordered, and the boy had obeyed, slipping off the horse with shaky legs.

He had looked around, frowning at the barren road. He must have realized an empty road in the middle of nowhere was better than nothing because he had looked back at Cardan and asked, “Why did you help me?” 

Cardan hadn’t answered because he hadn’t really _ known _why he helped the human, not at the time. 

“What is your name?” Cardan had said instead.

“Lucas,” the boy had responded softly, eyes searching Cardan’s face.

Cardan had given him a curt nod and had begun to steer the horse away when Lucas spoke up again. 

“You’re not like them,” he had whispered, his piercing brown eyes boring into Cardan’s.

Eyes like a fae’s and yet not at all.

_ You’re not like them. _

“I wish I were,” Cardan had admitted.

It had been a solid truth for once, not a truth spun in words that sounded an awful lot like lies. He had meant every word.

Cardan had waited for Lucas’s reaction, but the boy had merely nodded, as if he understood, and stepped closer. He took something out of his shirt, something that had been tucked into the waistband of his pants.

Cardan had wondered how it hadn’t been taken away from him when he arrived, but then he’d remembered humans were known to lie.

(He’d tried not to think about how much easier his life would have been if he could lie.)

“I don’t want this anymore,” Lucas had said, holding it out to Cardan. “It was my favorite as a child, but… but I think I’ve grown up now.” 

It was a small book with a picture of a girl looking up at a strange cat in a tree. 

“Please,” Lucas had begged, his eyes wet with unshed tears. He could have been one of the Folk, if only the tips of his ears had been pointed. Such a small difference that could have changed his whole life. _ “Take it.” _

So Cardan had snatched up the book and rode away from the human, without a backwards glance at the barren road.

♛ ♛ ♛

He never forgot that moment, and if he ever did, the large scar on his back from Balekin’s fury acted as a reminder that he was not like the other Folk.

Something in him was broken, something in him was _ human. _

And Balekin had known that. And he had tried and tried and tried to beat it out of him, but no matter how hard he hit, Cardan had stayed the same. It was just that no matter how hard Cardan tried, (and tried he did) he could not enjoy making other beings suffer. It was like throwing stones at birds who have done nothing but sing.

He took no pleasure from it and he didn’t understand those that did.

It was the main reason why Dain had kicked him out of the palace, why his own father had hated the sight of him. And it disgusted Cardan too, that sometimes he felt more human than faerie, and he knew that if anyone found out he would be made a laughingstock. But, as a Greenbriar, everyone assumed he was as cruel as the rest of his kin and he did not need to prove it to anyone. He only ever had to prove it to his brother in a room with no witnesses, and even then he had not admitted to his actions, to his _ feelings, _because admitting to Balekin that something wasn’t quite right with him would’ve had worse consequences than staying silent.

Balekin, on his part, had never told anyone else of Cardan’s antics, for who would have wanted Balekin as High King when he could not even control his own brother? 

A brother who seemingly cared for _ humans, _no less.

The most Cardan had ever done to harm another being was tear the wings off of that idiotic boy at the revel, the one who hadn’t knelt before him, but he’d had a good reason for that. The day before, Cardan had seen the boy cut off a mortal’s finger, smiling at the shrieking human while he swallowed the finger whole, bone and all, unaware that Cardan had been watching.

An eye for an eye, that was the saying, wasn’t it?

Even though word had gotten back to Balekin that Cardan had ripped the boy’s wing off in front of an audience, it still hadn’t made up for all the mortals he stole away, for the burning ache in his chest. 

For this reason, Cardan had continued to endure his punishments, hoping that each time he felt the sting of the belt the lesson would finally stick and he would stop _ feeling like this. _

But it had never worked, and he’d continued to steal mortals away from Balekin’s hand, the scars on his back increasing in retaliation. 

(He had also decided to stay drunk for most of his waking days during this time. It was hard to remember the broken parts of you when you could barely walk in a straight line.) 

He had stopped stealing humans away when Jude began to increasingly appear in his life, like a flicker of gold in the corner of his vision. Sometimes she had been alone and other times there had been a girl with her that wore the same face, but there was something about Jude that made her stand out compared to the other. Cardan had started to wonder how he could possibly save Jude from this world, like all those other humans he’d whisked away, when it had been clear that she didn’t _ want _ to be saved. 

After that revelation, she’d started to sneak into Cardan thoughts when he had least expected it and she’d assaulted his dreams until his mind had been overrun by Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude.

(He had shoved that paper into _ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,_ a reminder that they were both so different and yet so similar. Down to their core, they were both creatures reared in a wild and savage world, unsure of their place in it all.)

He had seen her cry and he had seen her kill and somehow, in some twisted way, it seemed to Cardan that Jude was more fae than him. She acted like she had nothing to lose, while he acted like he had everything. She shed her humanity through lies while Cardan kept his through actions. The Folk never really told the whole truth so he saved his actions for when he wanted to prove himself. To prove that there was something _ good _in him because when you can bend the truth everyone looks between the lines.

He’d spat words at Jude that she had taken for cruelty, when really the words were licked in a deep red that cut his tongue whenever they had rolled out of his mouth. Jude had thought she knew who Cardan was, but she had never really seen what he hid underneath. He had made sure of that.

He had continued to pick at her, glare at her, goad her, all to try and scare her away from Elfhame. But she wasn’t _ like _ every other human Cardan had met.

In the end, like the swift fall of an empire, Cardan had figured out a way to save Jude from Elfhame’s grasp, a way where she could not fight back with her lies and her swords. He had forced Jude to leave, had married her to banish her.

He knew it was cruel, but it was not as cruel as Elfhame, a world she should have never been brought to in the first place.

He had known she would hate him after that. It had twisted his heart in a way he’d never felt before when he’d watched her get dragged away, her eyes alight with a fire he’d never seen. 

But he hadn’t been able to regret what he’d done. Not fully, even if it had meant he might never see Jude again. 

Because the truth of it all was this: No matter what he told himself as he lay in bed, wide awake and afraid to listen to the voice in the back of his head, the truth was that Cardan had been trying to save others from Elfhame because he had failed to save himself from it.

♛ ♛ ♛

It was early autumn, and Cardan sat with his back against a tree, a breeze ruffling the pages of the book in his hands. The book was the same story as the one the human had given him years ago, but this one was newer, with a discount sticker on the front cover telling him the little book had been twenty percent off. The sticker meant nothing to him. He had paid with leaves. 

The wind caused Cardan’s hair to fall around his ears, the pointed tips hidden behind his dark curls. He sighed and stood up, tucking the book into his coat and striding back to Elfhame, ignoring the children in the park as they ran past him.

He had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading The Cruel Prince again and those two scenes made me realize Cardan isn't as bad as everyone assumes he is, so I wrote this.
> 
> Also, shoutout to Andy (@kingofrosesx on Twitter) for reminding me that we still don't know how Cardan acquired the Alice in Wonderland book, so obviously I had to add that in.
> 
> Update: Well The Queen of Nothing came out yesterday and I just finished it...  
***Very minor spoilers for QON below***
> 
> So... I guess my fic is canon now? ;)


End file.
